Are You A Prisoner Of The School System?

Are You A Prisoner Of The School System?.

#SupportBlackBusiness

Please support my mom and become a consistent customer by purchasing soul purpose products. #SupportBlackBusiness!

http://www.soulpurpose.net/esuite/home/carmenray/

Soul Purpose

http://www.soulpurpose.net

Are You A Prisoner Of The School System?

54.7 million is the number of students enrolled in elementary and secondary schools, both public and private, in the U.S. in 2011. Which is equivalent to saying 54.7 million students were incarcerated in the year 2011 in the United States. There are many similarities between our school system today and the prison system. The lunch, the security systems, the classrooms with no windows, the lack of voice, the fact that no one wants to be there, the list goes on. Now I don’t want to sit here and get extremely technical and share millions of statistics with you, I want to just simply share my school experience with you.

There are many things that attribute to the reason I feel like school is simply not the place for me, but I’ll stick to a few. I believe the first time I realized I didn’t fit into the school environment was when I was in first grade and I was harassed and beat up on the bus by a group of fourth graders for no reason. It was that moment I realized how different I was, throughout the whole incident I had no desire to fight back and the part that is so interesting to me now is the school I went to was considered one of the best schools in the suburbs of Milwaukee. Which is quite frightening I can’t even begin to imagine what the “bad” schools were like. I have been to several different schools throughout my life and have tried many different methods of schooling. I’ve been to private school, public school (just for the summer) suburban schools, charter schools, virtual school, home school, you name it I’ve probably tried it.

My last year of middle school was when I realize I absolutely could not take the school system anymore. I practically failed eighth grade because I took majority of my time researching ways to convince my mom to homeschool me instead of doing my homework. I didn’t finish my extensive research until around the end of my freshman year when I was finally able to convince my mom why homeschooling is the best option for me, and as a lot of you may know I am RayGirl #2 so of course I had to find a way to get RayGirl #1 on board. Once I had everyone convinced that this was the best and only option for me I was able to start planning my life as a homeschooler. At this time (end of freshman year) I thought I was the coolest kid ever walking to the library during school hours with my proof that I was homeschooled (which I carried everywhere) sitting in my wallet. I was determined I was going to be one of those people who stopped going to traditional school and invented something amazing and told there story around the world. That was my goal.

Towards the end of the homeschool year I had an opportunity like no other! I was invited to go to an international conference and speak about teen dating violence in New Orleans. It was an awesome experience that I wouldn’t have had if I had stayed in a traditional school environment. My sophomore year of high school my mom went back to work and I didn’t have to option to continue being homeschooled, I was devastated. I only complained the whole summer, that’s it, well maybe a little longer than that, honestly I complained until the first day of sophomore year. I went through so much sophomore year but surprisingly I managed to complete it without convincing my mom of some new form of schooling that would allow her to work and homeschool me at the same time.

When junior year came around I was completely done with the school system I was determined to never step foot into a traditional school again no matter what. So like I always do, I went in front of the computer and I began to research my options. At this point I was going to drop out because school just had that bad of an impact on me, I wanted out. My research took about four months. I finally found an awesome program for high schoolers online. I discovered my solution, which was virtual school.

Lets fast forward to now, am I in public school? No. Am I in private school? No. Am I homeschooled? No. Am I doing virtual school? Something like that, Lol (I’m not sure how appropriate text talk is in this post but hey it’s my blog I might as well be myself). Anyway I am enrolled in a high school in Arizona and I will be finishing up my senior year there. At this point I’ve tried everything. Some things worked and some things didn’t but through it all I’ve learned sometimes you gotta’ do what’cha gotta do. The fact that I am going to a traditional school next year will not stop me from promoting home school. I truly feel like it is the best solution for a lot of students right now. You ever heard the saying, you don’t know, what you don’t know? Well I apply that to everything and if you don’t know there are other options out there such as homeschooling that can truly benefit you, then you are going to stick to what you know. That is why I feel like it is my job to spread the word and I hope you all do your research and begin to spread the word as well.

Being An Entrepreneur In A Room Full Of Employees

What makes you stand out? Imagine being raised by a family of hard working business owners. Are you imagining it? Okay good. So picture yourself growing up going to a neighborhood where you’re family owns three daycares on the block and a Laundromat right next door. Picture going to daycare faithfully until the age of 15 and keep in mind the cut off age of daycare is 12. Most kids run away from daycare as soon as they are old enough to escape the system. Imagine gaining a love for teaching because your family decided to set an outstanding example of what it means to be a support to your community. Through the example I got of the importance of supporting community, I learned how amazing it was to be your own boss. Most teens can’t wait until they are old enough to get a job working for someone else to enhance the business of a complete stranger. I’ve ALWAYS thought why support someone else’s business when I could put that effort towards my own vision. Having a family of business owners really molded the set in stone mind set I have about being an entrepreneur. At the age of about 10 I really gained a love for teaching because of being in daycare so long. Between the ages of about 13 and 15 I attempted to start a million businesses, it wasn’t until my sophomore year that I truly found my calling when I joined an organization called Urban Underground, The place where I found my voice and my love for facilitating. Now that I know what my calling is all I have to do is live my vision, to me, that is my job. No one is going to live my vision for me. I am a creative person so I naturally have an interest in plethora of things. Yesterday my mom brought to my attention what my fear was and what risks i weren’t willing to take. She told me that my fear of not wanting to chose what “my thing” is based on all my interest is holding me back from being successful in any one of those things. She made me realize I don’t have to stick to one thing for the rest of my life but I can chose one thing to focus on for now. She said, “”You don’t have to pick “The thing”, just pick “A thing””, and that is what made me realize that I can do this! Writing this blog and making “askE” s success is my job! So although I was hired at Subway a couple days ago, the “Job” I am most proud of being hired at is my blog! Guess what everyone I recently got hired by MYself, to run MY own business! What an accomplishment! So what makes you stand out? Will you keep working for the success of someone else’s business of will you work toward finding your passion and hire yourself? 

1 Timothy 4:12

New International Version (NIV)

12 Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.

How Do You Play Your Hand?

“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.” 
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture